Consumer tend to prefer frozen foods over canned foods for a number of reasons. Frozen foods tend to look better than canned foods. Also the canning process tends to produce greater changes in texture, appearance and taste than quick freezing.
In the conventional preparation of frozen fruit, after undergoing a washing operation, the fruit is placed in containers, after which the containers are sealed by application of removable lids and then subjected to a quick freezing operation. Fresh fruit are quick frozen in the dry state, or the fruit may be covered with a suitable syrup containing sucrose or some other sugar product. Examples of prior art methods for producing frozen fruit or other foods are provided by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,780,551 issued Feb. 5, 1957 to D. G. Guadagni et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 3,377,172 issued Apr. 9, 1968 to E. J. Bensen et al. In a large scale operation a number of containers are subjected to quick freezing simultaneously. To maximize throughput in the quick freezing stage, it is desirable to stack containers one upon the other. However, a critical factor in freezing fruit in containers is to produce an even and complete freezing of the fruit, and stacking containers one upon the other tends interferes with the flow of frigid air or other gaseous freezing medium around the containers.